PLANT. 



xvhile almost every genus and species of 

 the zoophytes can only be included under 

 it. Plants, on the contrary, are for the 

 most part stationary, yet there are many 

 that are fairly entitled to be regarded as 

 locomotive or migratory. The strawberry 

 may be selected as a familiar example." 

 Plants, like animals, have a wonderful 

 power of maintaining their common tem- 

 perature, whatever be the temperature of 

 the atmosphere that surrounds them, and 

 like animals, they are found to exist in 

 astonishing degrees of heat and cold. Of 

 these, Mr. Good has given many curious 

 instances. Animals are often divided into 

 the three classes of terrestrial, aquatic, 

 and aerial. Plants are capable of a simi- 

 lar division. Among animals, it is pro- 

 bable that the largest number is of the 

 first class, but among vegetables, it should 

 seem, from the almost countless species 

 of fuci, &c. that the largest number be- 

 longs to the submarine class Many ani- 

 mals are amphibious, or capable of pre- 

 serving life in either element ; the vege- 

 table world is not without instances of a 

 similar power. Animals of various kinds 

 are aerial : all the most succulent plants 

 of hot climates are of this description : 

 these will only grow in soils or sands from 

 which no moisture can be extracted : they 

 are even destroyed by a full supply of wet 

 by a rainy season : hence it has been sup- 

 posed, that they derive the whole of their 

 nourishment from the surrounding atmos- 

 phere, and that the only advantage which 

 they acquire from thrusting their roots 

 into such strata, is that of obtaining an 

 erect position. Some quadrupeds seem 

 to derive nutriment in the same manner. 

 The bradypus, or sloth, never drinks, and 

 trembles at the feeling of rain. Among 

 plants, possessing the same properties, is 

 the aerial epidendrum, a native of the 

 East Indies, where it is no uncommon 

 thing for the inhabitants to pluck it up 

 on account of the elegance of its leaves, 

 the beauty of its flower, and the exquisite 

 odour it diffuses, and to suspend it by a 

 silken cord from the ceiling of their rooms, 

 where, from year to year, it continues to 

 put forth new leaves, new blossoms, a 

 new fragrance, excited alone to new life 

 and action by the stimulus of the sur- 

 rounding atmosphere. " That stimulus 

 is oxygen ; ammonia is a good stimulus, 

 but oxygen possesses far superior powers, 

 and hence, without some portion of oxy- 

 gen, no plant can ever be made to germi- 

 nate : hence, to the use of cow-dung, and 

 other animal recrements, which consists 

 of muriatic acid and ammonia, while in 



fat oil and other fluids, that contain little 

 or no oxygen, and consist altogether, or 

 nearly so, of hydrogen and carbon, seeds 

 may be confined for ages without exhibit- 

 ing any germination whatever. And 

 hence, again, and the fact deserves to be 

 extensively known, however torpid a seed 

 may be, and destitute of all power to ve- 

 getate in any other substance, if steeped 

 in a diluted solution of oxygenated muri- 

 atic acid, at a temperature of about 46 

 or 48 of Fahrenheit, provided it still pos- 

 sess its principle of vitality, it will ger- 

 minate in a few hours ; and if, after this, 

 it be planted, as it ought to be, in its ap- 

 propriate soil, will grow with as much 

 speed and vigour as if it had evinced no 

 torpidity whatever." 



The author next proceeds to enquire 

 into the mode by which vegetable matter 

 is capable of being converted into animal 

 substance, so as not only to be perfectly 

 assimilated to it, but to become the basis 

 of animal nutriment and increase. " Now, 

 to be able to reply succinctly and direct- 

 ly to this question, it is necessary first of 

 all to inquire into the chief feature in 

 which animal and vegetable substances 

 agree, and the chief feature in which they 

 disagree. 



" Animals and vegetables, then, agree 

 in their equal necessity of extracting a 

 certain sweet and saccharine fluid, as the 

 basis of their support, from whatever sub- 

 stances may, for this purpose, be applied 

 to their respective organs of digestion. 

 Animal chyle and vegetable sap have a 

 very close approximation to each other, 

 in their constituent principles, as well as 

 in their external appearance. In this re- 

 spect plants and animals agree. They 

 disagree, inasmuch as animal substances 

 possess a very large proportion of azote, 

 with a very small proportion of carbon ; 

 while vegetable substances, on the con- 

 trary, possess a very large proportion of 

 carbon, with a very small proportion of 

 azote. And it is hence obvious, that ve- 

 getable matter can only be assimilated to 

 animal, by parting with its excess of car- 

 bon, and filling up its deficiency of azote. 

 " Vegetable substances, then, part first 

 of all with a considerable portion of their 

 excess of carbon, in the stomach and in- 

 testinal canal, during the process of di- 

 gestion ; a certain quantity of the carbon 

 detaching a certain quantity of the oxy- 

 gen, existing in these organs, as an ele- 

 mentary part of the air or water they con- 

 tain, in consequence of its closer affinity 

 to oxygen, and producing carbonic acid 

 gas ; a fact which has been clearly ascer- 



